| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: to the Arkham for relaying; and I think we did well to keep it
as calm and noncommittal as we succeeded in doing. The most we
said about agitation concerned our dogs, whose frantic uneasiness
near the biological specimens was to be expected from poor Lake’s
accounts. We did not mention, I think, their display of the same
uneasiness when sniffing around the queer greenish soapstones
and certain other objects in the disordered region-objects including
scientific instruments, aeroplanes, and machinery, both at the
camp and at the boring, whose parts had been loosened, moved,
or otherwise tampered with by winds that must have harbored singular
curiosity and investigativeness.
At the Mountains of Madness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: staircase.
The young man hesitated. He might have been a bedizened citizen's wife
craning her neck over a gutter swollen by the rain. But the hour was
not unpropitious for the indulgence of some discreditable whim.
Earlier, he might have been detected; later, he might find himself cut
out. Tempted by a glance which is encouraging without being inviting,
to have followed a young and pretty woman for an hour, or perhaps for
a day, thinking of her as a divinity and excusing her light conduct by
a thousand reasons to her advantage; to have allowed oneself to
believe in a sudden and irresistible affinity; to have pictured, under
the promptings of transient excitement, a love-adventure in an age
Gambara |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: He passed into the bedroom, and after an interval which
seemed to draw out into eternity for his unfortunate
companion, he returned, bearing in his hand an open Gladstone
bag. His movements were still horribly deliberate, and his
eyes lingered gloatingly on his dear boxes, as he moved to
and fro about the drawing-room, gathering a few small
trifles. Last of all, he lifted one of the squares of
dynamite.
'Put that down!' cried Somerset. 'If what you say be true,
you have no call to load yourself with that ungodly
contraband.'
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